Rate what you Read, or the fight against Necromancy

[DukeLeto69]

Bloody finally. I hope it'll reconcile some of the Siege developments Abaddon has been getting, too.

I wouldn't even know if it'd surprise me more if we got this or Penitent first.

Interesting as I always thought ADB was like a God round here!

 

I didn’t really like Talon on first read. When Black Legion came out I decided to re-read Talon in prep and absolutely loved it second time around! No idea why.

 

I too look forward to BL3 more than SotE2. SotE was solid but not amazing IMHO.

 

I think with ADB you are guaranteed a good book, well written. I think (but do not know) one of the reasons ADB is so popular with the fanbase (apart from his high level of interaction) is his apparent love and respect for the lore.

 

My favourite BL author is Abnett who I think is a better writer with better prose but I totally admit he plays a little loose with established lore and I know some some folks don’t like that.

 

Based on body of work (not individual novels) ADB is in my top 5 but gets pipped by Abnett, Fehervari, Farrer and Wraight.

[DarkChaplain]

 

 

Is Ian still gonna write more Lucius, while we're mentioning that? He did a bunch of shorts before/after the novel, but it's been a good while without a follow up. Were there no plans for a Lucius trilogy, or did it just get slaanesh'd for flying under the radar?

His Rapid Fire Interview says he planned for a trilogy, which is as much detail as I can find. Will depend on how it sold, but these days BL puts out so much it's hard to tell what people are actually buying. No one talks about Brooks (or if they do, unfortunately often negatively) but he's getting novels, so hopefully St. Martin is the same.

According to his LinkedIn he’s been working at Riot Games for the past year (they sure do love BL writers) so it might just be a case of him being busy.

 

 

Riot has been poaching BL authors and staff left and right. As somebody with absolutely sub-zero interest in their IPs, and worse, an active distaste for their games, sheer disgust at their company, and nothing but apprehension about them being fully owned by Tencent, I basically said "goodbye, it was nice while it lasted" to all of those authors' careers since then. They might be well-paid dayjobs, but they moved McNeill and co far outside my sphere of interest.

 

--------------------------

 

As for AD-B, I've had my criticisms for most of his works; they tend to be well above average, entertaining reads, but not flawless to the point of worship.

 

Spears of the Emperor, for what it's worth, took me a while to get through when they released the audiobook. Even then I only got through it as quickly as I did because I was sick at the time and had nothing better to do than lie in bed or on the couch with the audiobook running, turning around over and over trying to get comfortable and sleep it off. Didn't quite work, so the audiobook kept running.

 

But as far as the actual book went? It did great on the worldbuilding front, and had some intriguing characters. But plotwise, I wasn't enamored. What we saw of the Mentors through the hardass bloke was (deliberately) offputting. AD-B managed to convey his ideas well and succeeded thematically, but the themes didn't hit high resonance with me anyway. There was a lack of agency almost the entire way through, which of course was the point, but it wasn't very interesting to follow when the protagonist just stumbled from one thing into another without really having much of a hand in it, only tagging along as an asset / observer. Those stories can work well, I've enjoyed the kind before, but here I didn't think it was anything I'd want to eagerly recall again at a future date, and definitely wasn't a novel I want to return to for its own sake. I'd read the sequel, probably, but if that doesn't hit it out of the park for me, I wouldn't read the third.

 

I remember reviewing Master of Mankind back when it released as well, and was highly conflicted about it. It did a lot of things right on paper, but in hindsight, even discounting the drama on B&C surrounding it, I can't say I love it. I love the things it try to convey for the setting, but it doesn't spark excitement like other novels in the series, or at the very least, it doesn't make me want to talk about it. If I despised it, like I do Fear to Tread and The Unremembered Empire (which sparked a very, very long WIP-limbo'd disection of the Imperium Secundus arc, which I've never been comfortable to publish / finish (which I couldn't really do anyway as the arc wasn't finished til Ruinstorm, which was way later than I was hoping), that's how much issue I took with TUE and Imperium Secundus in execution, the schedule etc), I'd at least want to talk about Master of Mankind more. If I loved it, I'd want to recommend it to people. But for as fundamental as it is from a lore perspective, it's never really been one of my recommended reads for the Heresy, either. It's super duper important to the background, but pretty negligible in the grand scheme of ongoing storytelling, isolated and hushed up by design.

 

So there, two chunks of me rambling about my feelings on fan-favorite books that didn't resonate with me in the long term.

[Roomsky]

As someone who prefers to read rather than listen (though I do plenty of the latter anyway), ADB is my favourite author at BL. Quality of prose is far more important coming from a page compared to from a narrator, though I don’t suggest one is more valid than the other. Few others compare to ADB in that regard, for me.

 

To me personally, if you’re going to write a book you need to have some artistry with the written word, else you should find another medium for your story. It’s for that reason I have little patience for authors like GRR Martin, or in the BL stable Thorpe or Haley. Keep in mind that, again, these guys can be great to listen to (as DC has mentioned before, there’s layers to his Raven Guard work you may not notice on that first go-through), but I have no desire to revisit what they’ve put to page, ever.

 

But if we want to talk characters and themes, I’m game. ADB writes some of the best marines in the stable, and contrary to the people who meme on him, great humans too. The idea of a marine standing apart from his brothers is a direction to take a character, and is a source of good drama. They are not all the same for that. I’ll never forget Argel Tal, Grimaldus, Khayon, etc, purely because of how he’s written them. Lotarra is my favourite human character in Black Library fiction, and the Night Lords thrall characters, Anuradha, Cyrene, Land, etc almost reach the same heights, though at times for the novel hardships they endure if not their personality. There’s a particular meme I won’t go off on unless someone tries to argue it.

Almost as important for me, though it endears me to his work all the more, is simply that I think he’s got an excellent grasp on the setting. The Imperium is an awful empire run by awful people, and his works never forget that. The amount of senseless violence in his books is core to the atmosphere and I feel it is missed by many. A character in Master of Mankind almost died because nobody noticed her attendant servitor malfunctioned. 40k is a meat grinder, and ADB doesn’t let you forget it.

 

It’s still not his place to claim in an afterword that Chaos wins, though.

Edited May 15, 2020 by Roomsky

[StrangerOrders]

Won't comment on ADB, talking about him always feels like being pushed off a plank at midnight and being unsure if the fins you see below are friendly dolphins, sharks or a single murder-kraken. I think his prose are great, but I take issue with alot of the things he does and doesnt say, but again I am not particularly interested in meeting a violent demise.

 

I do think any fanbase with multiple authors does tend towards some very aggressive hero worship though.

 

On another note, Imma share my impressions on the Primarch books (except Guilliman, I need to get around to his).

 

Leman Russ: The Great Wolf

 

I have long been of the opinion that BL hates the Sixth as much as GW loves them. Can't say I was asking for another book about how incompetent the Space Wolves are and the superiority of another Legion, but apparently that is just how they roll. This book seems to actively disdain the Sixth and there is precious little I can say that is positive here, the human empire they were fighting was a bit forgettable and the Dark Angel's characterization these days seems to just default to 'whatever knightly tradition you are feeling like at the moment, but more dickish'. That being said this is a decent-ish novel for the Lion if horribly inferior to his own.

 

If there is one thing I think as a fan of both the Sixth and the Fifteenth, its that the writers usually feel the need to paint them as either frighteningly stupid or one milisecond away from suffering a horrific loss. The Sixth had potential for digging into some really cool campaigns, the origins of sagas and so much more.

 

Instead we got this.

 

Rating: 4.5 Incompetent Wolves/ 10 Extremely Teutonic Arthurians. To Taste Like Wolf

 

Magnus the Red: Master of Prospero

 

Its weird to me how much Wolf and Sons fans fight, it seems to me they basically have the same story arc, arc not arcs. Every novel seems to start with things going decently well, then things go horribly wrong and it wraps up with the Primarch or MC learning a bitter lesson they will forget withing seconds. 

 

This book also mirrors Leman Russ in that it is far more complementary of an a view into another Legion than the one its meant to be about. McNeil continues to care very little for the existing body of lore and gives us a Perturabo which is so at odds with most showings that it makes precious little sense, as well as making Forex apparently able to fight off a literal army. Meanwhile the Sons get overwhelmed by the likes of zombies and Magnus (who continues to be one of the confusingly proficient killers of TS on record).

 

Now, this book did have its moments. Such as when Magnus was allowed two minutes of awesome (at the cost of a fraction of his officer corps, but se la vie) and the IW parts were admittedly pretty cool. But that isnt enough for me, I didnt walk into this book expecting to retread the same tired lesson again. But even this is outweighed by some random Daemon beating the heck out of supposedly the second most powerful Psyker on record and Ahriman being so incapable that I am questioning the value of his cult.

 

The TS are supposed to be proud, they arent supposed to lack Pattern Recognition.

 

Rating: 3.8 Object Permanence Lessons/ 10 The horrifying realizations that a Primarch can be outsmarted by Lab Mice. Unreadable Due to Perturabo Breaking It.

 

Perturabo: The Hammer of Olympia

 

This book is good on its own, it wont win awards or wow you with its prose, but its value to the setting as a whole cannot be overestimated. This is the book that sews together the bulk of depictions of Perturabo, whatever McNeil was smoking and some genuinely novel ideas and gives us one of the most dynamic and multi-faceted of the Primarchs. It still very much makes Perturabo and insufferable prick, but he is a complex insufferable prick. And this is a form of him that I would love to see more of.

 

The issue with this book though is an issue with alot of Primarch books, it cant seem to pick a lane. I was very interested in the campaign on the Hrud and even moreso with regards to Perturabo's past, I wasnt in love with having to constantly leap back and forth. Some folks need a conventional plot and its often far more the case that editors are terrified of risk, but I would have loved a book (heck, eighteen books) that just exclusively and coherently followed a Primarchs entire life pre-Emp. Olympia was a fascinating setting I wanted more of, Pert's family (and his dynamic with his father and sister) was eye-catching. That is where this book could have improved.

 

The Hrud bits were fun though and Dantioch is always interesting. 

 

Still, I credit this book for making Pert the Primarch he is now.

 

Rating: 8 Not-Related-By-Blood Sisters/ 10 Unexpected Anime References. Must Buy For Character Coherence

 

Lorgar: Bearer of the Word

 

I can be harsh on Thorpe, but I actually quite liked this. I dislike how often folks miss the issues with Lorgar and sometimes you need to take a maul to someone's head for them to get the point. This book is a creepy and interesting read which made me genuinely disgusted in a way conventional horror fails to do.

 

That being said, Lorgar and the Colchis as a whole has pitifully underdeveloped theology and it is becoming increasingly inexcusable. There are at least a dozen major global religions with millennia of nuanced theology to draw from, why are they stuck at 'a bored college student's grasp on a meme of how christian theology works'? I usually dont hound on this, but the creativity of his Eldar books make me want to be able to hold Thorpe to a higher standard there.

 

The subcultures of Colchis did draw my curiousity though, and the world itself could use another book or two.

 

The flash-forward scenes also made me annoyed. 

 

Rating: 6 Child Abusers/ 10 Kor Phaeron Exiles. To Taste Crispy.

 

 

 

Will post more later, but here are just my scores.

 

Fulgrim: The Palatine Phoenix

Rating: 9.5 Unnecessary Fights/ 10 Fabulous Phoenixes. Must Buy, Buy it Now.

Ferrus Manus: The Gorgon of Medusa

Rating: 8 Billion Gardinaal Lives/ 10 Yen Coin.  Must Buy, You See a Guy Punch a Laser, What More Do You Want?

Jaghatai Khan: Warhawk of Chogoris

Rating: 7 Tsundere Khans/ 10 Shady Luna Wolves. Must Buy If You Already Have Scars and Path of Heaven.

Vulkan: Lord of Drakes

Rating: 3 Vulkans/ 10 Inteligent Strategic Choices. Diehards Only, It Will Help You Die Faster.

Corax: Lord of Shadows

Rating: 7 Birbs/ 10 Political Incompetents. To Taste Like Chicken.

Angron: Slave of Nuceria

Rating: 8 Ironies/ 10 Angrons Deaf to Them. Must Buy For the Recently-Broken Centurian.

Konrad Curze: The Night Haunter

Rating: 7 Tubs of Greese/ 10 Night Haunter Hairstyles. To Taste Eyeballs.

[Gongsun Zan]

Some quick rankings of books I've read this year, but didn't really feel like making a standalone post for: 

 

Helsreach - ADB

 

My second favorite siege novel in 40k, and possibly my favorite standalone work by ADB. Some of the supporting cast felt somewhat underdeveloped, but this is a story about Grimaldus and the city of Helsreach first and foremost, so I think it gets away with it. 9/10 – Must Read.

 

The Path of Heaven - Chris Wraight

 

Scars was truly amazing with its singular focus on developing the White Scars. Path of Heaven is bigger in scope and suffers a bit for it. And then Swallow ruins it further by spitting all over everything Wraight sets up for Mortarion. 8/10 if you can pretend Buried Dagger never existed. Must Read if you’re following the White Scars through the Hersey (and why wouldn’t you?), but not something I’d recommend on its own.  

 

Ferrus Manus: Gorgon of Medusa – David Guymer

 

Roomsky already said everything that needs to be said about this book. Does a lot to establish two legions that got relatively shafted by the HH, and I also appreciate the acknowledgement of RG’s temper, which is something that not everyone seems to pick up on. Also has the best depiction of an Ultramarine being thrown across a battlefield. 8/10. Is it essential to the HH? Probably not. But it does so much to enrich the setting I would recommend it to anyone reading through the HH.

 

Witness / Execution / Siren - John French

 

Haven't read Ironclad. These are stories about tanks shooting other tanks. Fairly entertaining for what they are, but I think there's only so much you can do with the subject matter. 6/10

 

Requiem Infernal (Re-Read) - Peter Fehervari

 

As a standalone 40k novel I think Fire Caste is better, but in the context of the Dark Coil I enjoyed Requiem Infernal more. Like all of PF’s other works, there's plenty of details to be picked up on a re-read, which made me appreciate this book even more. Almost a perfect 40k book for me, except that I’m not really quite sure what to make of PF’s handling of Slaanesh as compared to the other three chaos gods.  9.5 – Must Read.

Edited May 19, 2020 by Gongsun Zan

[Roomsky]

Nice reviews. If you're a fan of French's work, Ironclad is probably worth a read, there's a bit of Tank stuff but is a much more top-down look at the conflict. The focus on espionage and a broad-strokes description of the battle turned many off, but I preferred it.

[bluntblade]

I do think that there ought to have been a separate book dealing with the broad sweep of the conflict.

[DarkChaplain]

Nice reviews. If you're a fan of French's work, Ironclad is probably worth a read, there's a bit of Tank stuff but is a much more top-down look at the conflict. The focus on espionage and a broad-strokes description of the battle turned many off, but I preferred it.

 

Am one of those that got turned off. Everything I loved from Executioner felt sorely lacking, replaced with fairly bland, throwaway characters and a macguffin that never really got explored or felt consequential beyond having to be mentioned as per lore requirements. And to this day, I still don't like Argonis =/

[Roomsky]

 

Nice reviews. If you're a fan of French's work, Ironclad is probably worth a read, there's a bit of Tank stuff but is a much more top-down look at the conflict. The focus on espionage and a broad-strokes description of the battle turned many off, but I preferred it.

 

Am one of those that got turned off. Everything I loved from Executioner felt sorely lacking, replaced with fairly bland, throwaway characters and a macguffin that never really got explored or felt consequential beyond having to be mentioned as per lore requirements. And to this day, I still don't like Argonis =/

 

 

Care to outline your dislike of the guy? I've always appreciated the move to bring in more non-essential SOHs.

[Pacific81]

Damnation of Pythos - David Annandale

 

I admit I wasn't looking forward to this one because of the generally negative feeling towards it, but it turned out to be much better than I was expecting.

 

Firstly, Annandale has a very readable prose style and it is clear what is happening, which isn't something that can always be said of BL fiction. Secondly, this was the best depiction of the Iron Hands I have read so far. Annandale gave us two Iron Hands characters, Atticus and Galba, poles apart in terms of their machine-augmetics and their priorities, but both dealing with the fall-out of Isstvan V, the death of their primarch, the start of the heresy and what it now means to be an Iron Hand. He got inside their heads well and showed just how conflicted they could be, with realistic behaviours and rationales.

 

Of course they wouldn't be the Iron Hands if they didn't rush bone-headedly into a situation only to make things worse, but how they came to these decisions was very well played out in the book.

 

The use of human serfs also was well done, showing how they coped with the horror of Pythos and the inability of even the Iron Hands or praise of the Emperor to save them. It's nice to see the good guys lose so completely in the Heresy, and the flipside to the burgeoning cult of the Emperor showing that in the end He was powerless to protect anyone.

 

With a couple of tweaks, this would have made a great entry into the Horror series, something at which Annandale excels. The ending where Kanshell the serf, who had given himself over to worship of the Emperor, was horrific, being taken alive by the daemons to witness the Chaotic-resurrection of the Veritas Ferrum. The book left it at this, but I imagined that Kanshell would be incorporated, still-living, into the ship somehow, to bear witness to an eternity of horror.

 

The downsides for me were that the final 75-100 or so pages devolved into tedious bolter-porn, and so the great reveal of the daemon Madail was downplayed and overshadowed by Stuff Happening that it all turned into a blur.

 

7/10

 

I am just catching up with the Heresy series and have only just got to this one - have got some reading to do that's for sure!

 

Think you sum up the book pretty well. Agree this is probably the most serviceable attempt at writing Iron Hands I have come across - even amongst the rest of the Marine archetypes they are pretty dull so I think he does a good job to at least make it interesting. And find different ways of writing 'stony, immovable visage'! Adding a couple of marines from other Legions as well as the human characters was again I thought a good move, and helped to add a bit of colour. 

 

It was definitely good as a 'horror', and again agree about the ending section which you know is coming but is probably the weakest point of the book. I would preferred for him to have gone off-piste here and done something radical with the marines, but I guess there is probably something contractual within BL about having a certain number of characters grimly clutching kicking bolters and mass-reactive shells bursting enemies apart. 

 

Finally.. (highlight text for Spoilers..)

 

I have to say that the ending was so ridiculously, OTT grimdark that I actually found it amusing. I'm sure not the desired intent. 

 

Is there some tag here to a following story, audiobook or something like that that takes it further? 

[DarkChaplain]

 

 

Nice reviews. If you're a fan of French's work, Ironclad is probably worth a read, there's a bit of Tank stuff but is a much more top-down look at the conflict. The focus on espionage and a broad-strokes description of the battle turned many off, but I preferred it.

 

Am one of those that got turned off. Everything I loved from Executioner felt sorely lacking, replaced with fairly bland, throwaway characters and a macguffin that never really got explored or felt consequential beyond having to be mentioned as per lore requirements. And to this day, I still don't like Argonis =/

 

 

Care to outline your dislike of the guy? I've always appreciated the move to bring in more non-essential SOHs.

 

 

Sure thing. I'll put it in spoiler tags, to be safe.

 

Generally, yep, I'm with you there, bringing in fresh perspectives *is* a good and necessary thing for the Heresy - otherwise you just end up like a bogstandard McNeill novel. But then, especially with the Sons of Horus, I don't really think we were necessarily lacking in known characters - they just didn't get a great deal of screentime or were used as fodder. Just look at how long it took for them to tackle Tybalt Marr (first to great effect, then less so). Up until The Either, the guy was great fun and interesting by himself, though that diminished since Old Earth rolled The Iron Tenth into the Vulkan arc.

 

Argonis in particular just came out of left field, with an unclear rank and position within the Sons of Horus, but somehow becomes emissary of Maloghurst and then Horus, taken into confidence. He was said to be a good pilot and sort of a decent duelist, but beyond that, his qualifications came across as "badass" to me. It was only much later that there was some background added to him re: Cthonia in Slaves to Darkness, but by that point, he's had prime time with Horus in Dark Compliance - something that even other sons of his have struggled with since Vengeful Spirit at the least. So in that sense, to me he felt like an upstart newly invented by an author who wasn't satisfied with the rest of the roster - which is fine - but also gave considerable weight to him beyond what we've seen from other Sons of Horus around the time. Heck, he wasn't even considered as a Mournival addition at all, back in Little Horus (shortly before Vengeful Spirit), which he probably should've been (even if discarded like the others) if even Mal and Horus had an interest in him.

 

And then he got paired with Sota-Nul, who I still consider uniquely annoying in the later Heresy, which resulted in a sort of feedback loop. Rising star badass cthonian of unclear rank or relevance coupled with newfound equerry of Kelbor Hal (who barely even features in the entire series, despite being THE Big Bad of the Dark Mechanicum), who now also has a bunch of disciples aping her during the Siege. Always seems to know better, of course.

That's two characters in one swoop coming from John French that have been pushed through most - or, split up, all -  of his works lately, in one capacity or another, to the point where Argonis is now the face of Horus Lupercal during the Siege.

 

Yet I still don't have a reason to respect Argonis as a character, or a military figure within his Legion, or am given to understand why any of the higher ranking captains should give a toss about the bloke, who seemingly only comes out to play when it's conveniently just Horus or previously Maloghurst. Heck, in Dark Compliance, his mission to Perturabo on Tallarn is presented as a failure, which he himself acknowledges as such. Horus calls him a useful weapon, but by that point, he's not even been shown competent in the realm of politics or subterfuge during his actions as emissary. When sent back to accompany Perturabo hunting down Angron, he's basically the guy-who-was-tagging-along, in my eyes, while Perturabo and Volk did the work. And then he comes back and replaces Maloghurst as Horus' equerry.

 

Had we at least seen Argonis interacting with his own squad sometime in the past, doing regular Marine things within the hierarchy, or really, interacting more with known characters before becoming the new hot , I would feel better about him. There are other latecomer characters that are presented far better, I'd say.

 

In a nutshell, we are told and expected to believe that Argonis is Totally Awesome, Honest, but to me, this hasn't been proven at all by the works he's in. If anything, Horus is correct. He is a tool. And not a particularly sharp one, or utilized well.

 

And no, even if one were to tell me that this was Alan Bligh's idea all along (as seems to be a common argument with some additions and changes the last couple of years, although that in itself doesn't do anything to improve the ideas' implementation), and that he's a Big Dude in some Black Book (even an upcoming one), as somebody who expects the Heresy series to be worthwhile without supplementary hardcover background books from a third party arm of GW... I don't really see the value.

Edited May 19, 2020 by DarkChaplain

[bluntblade]

I'm still cross about Sedirae and Targhost being bumped off, but even more that Noctua succumbed to Sudden Stupid Complacency when he should really have risen over the course of several books.

[DarkChaplain]

Precisely. Targost was one of the important blokes from way back in Collected Visions. He's the dude who bloody commissioned the Lodge medals... and then was never really relevant again until Vengeful Spirit, where he's responsible for the Tormageddon fiasko and getting killed off right after.

Luc Sedirae was set up as a sort of rival to Abaddon... and then assassinated in a book that had the inklings of being great, for about 100 pages, before diving off the deep end with anti-null-assassin daemons or something.

 

Ekaddon was pretty much forgotten for most of the series. Noctua was introduced solely to be sacrificed for the Tormageddon switcheroo. Don't get me wrong, Tormageddon was set up in various shorts and novels here and there, and it attempted to fix a disconnect between Collected Visions-era lore and the Heresy series, as Torgaddon was shown with very Chaos-y enhancements and iconography during the Siege iirc, artwork and all, which obviously couldn't have happened if he lost his head in the opening trilogy. But the way they went about it is still dumb.

Lev Goshen was around from the start in Horus Rising and featured in Little Horus by namedrop and then in Vengeful Spirit again, but then didn't have anything more to him until Saturnine, with what, two chapters for a few pages each? And then there were characters here and there throughout, like Hasdrubal Serapis in The Iron Within (who I believe survived but was taken captive, never to be seen again).

 

A lot of Legions had new characters introduced, but they tended to have more meat to them than Argonis. When Dantioch was added to the series, he started with a short story - no more than that - which also showcased why this guy is respected and worth talking about. He had a flair all his own. I never had that impression from Argonis, who I believe has had more pagetime by now.

[bluntblade]

This pretty much drives all my ideas for the Legion in my hypothetical Heresy. Slaves to Darkness, it must be remembered, is essentially a fix. Things like Molech would also probably play rather better if you had the likes of Targhost and Erebus taking a hand there, to the disapproval of Abaddon and Aximand.

 

Incidentally, I'd have also chosen that time to really display Abaddon serving as an extension of Horus' authority, leading units from other Legions. Something to foreshadow that point in Talon of Horus when he knows all those Rubricae and Lheor's World Eaters by name.

Edited May 19, 2020 by bluntblade

[Roomsky]

 

 

Care to outline your dislike of the guy? I've always appreciated the move to bring in more non-essential SOHs.

 

 

Sure thing. I'll put it in spoiler tags, to be safe.

 

Generally, yep, I'm with you there, bringing in fresh perspectives *is* a good and necessary thing for the Heresy - otherwise you just end up like a bogstandard McNeill novel. But then, especially with the Sons of Horus, I don't really think we were necessarily lacking in known characters - they just didn't get a great deal of screentime or were used as fodder. Just look at how long it took for them to tackle Tybalt Marr (first to great effect, then less so). Up until The Either, the guy was great fun and interesting by himself, though that diminished since Old Earth rolled The Iron Tenth into the Vulkan arc.

 

Argonis in particular just came out of left field, with an unclear rank and position within the Sons of Horus, but somehow becomes emissary of Maloghurst and then Horus, taken into confidence. He was said to be a good pilot and sort of a decent duelist, but beyond that, his qualifications came across as "badass" to me. It was only much later that there was some background added to him re: Cthonia in Slaves to Darkness, but by that point, he's had prime time with Horus in Dark Compliance - something that even other sons of his have struggled with since Vengeful Spirit at the least. So in that sense, to me he felt like an upstart newly invented by an author who wasn't satisfied with the rest of the roster - which is fine - but also gave considerable weight to him beyond what we've seen from other Sons of Horus around the time. Heck, he wasn't even considered as a Mournival addition at all, back in Little Horus (shortly before Vengeful Spirit), which he probably should've been (even if discarded like the others) if even Mal and Horus had an interest in him.

 

And then he got paired with Sota-Nul, who I still consider uniquely annoying in the later Heresy, which resulted in a sort of feedback loop. Rising star badass cthonian of unclear rank or relevance coupled with newfound equerry of Kelbor Hal (who barely even features in the entire series, despite being THE Big Bad of the Dark Mechanicum), who now also has a bunch of disciples aping her during the Siege. Always seems to know better, of course.

That's two characters in one swoop coming from John French that have been pushed through most - or, split up, all -  of his works lately, in one capacity or another, to the point where Argonis is now the face of Horus Lupercal during the Siege.

 

Yet I still don't have a reason to respect Argonis as a character, or a military figure within his Legion, or am given to understand why any of the higher ranking captains should give a toss about the bloke, who seemingly only comes out to play when it's conveniently just Horus or previously Maloghurst. Heck, in Dark Compliance, his mission to Perturabo on Tallarn is presented as a failure, which he himself acknowledges as such. Horus calls him a useful weapon, but by that point, he's not even been shown competent in the realm of politics or subterfuge during his actions as emissary. When sent back to accompany Perturabo hunting down Angron, he's basically the guy-who-was-tagging-along, in my eyes, while Perturabo and Volk did the work. And then he comes back and replaces Maloghurst as Horus' equerry.

 

Had we at least seen Argonis interacting with his own squad sometime in the past, doing regular Marine things within the hierarchy, or really, interacting more with known characters before becoming the new hot , I would feel better about him. There are other latecomer characters that are presented far better, I'd say.

 

In a nutshell, we are told and expected to believe that Argonis is Totally Awesome, Honest, but to me, this hasn't been proven at all by the works he's in. If anything, Horus is correct. He is a tool. And not a particularly sharp one, or utilized well.

 

And no, even if one were to tell me that this was Alan Bligh's idea all along (as seems to be a common argument with some additions and changes the last couple of years, although that in itself doesn't do anything to improve the ideas' implementation), and that he's a Big Dude in some Black Book (even an upcoming one), as somebody who expects the Heresy series to be worthwhile without supplementary hardcover background books from a third party arm of GW... I don't really see the value.

 

 

I personally didn't get the impression he was totally awesome. In Ironclad and Slaves, I saw some poor who Horus sent on missions that would probably get him killed; his death was expected but his survival was welcomed. Maloghurst certainly set a high bar for the equerry's capabilities, but it's not really a position that requires usual astartes competence. Morarg was made Mortarion's because he had a good memory. He strikes me as someone expendable Horus sends to do busywork, though I admit it may just be my reading of it. It hardly seems an enviable position at this point, and Horus' good conversation partners in the Mournival begin and end with Aximand by that point.

 

I agree that in a better-planned Heresy he should have been someone else. Sedirae and especially Targost both going out in books they barely feature in was a strange move, and the latter had lots of potential to be a compelling antagonist. Death of a Silversmith almost seems to exist just to pump up the idea, before the same author has him anticlimactically shot in the head. And this confusion is coming from a reader who loves a good anticlimax.

 

Sota-Nul I can't really agree with. Kelbor Hal shouldn't be doing anything out in the field, and having someone like Malevolus or Chrom show up for the mission would be strange (and have ye olde galaxy-shrinking effect). I suppose it could have been Regulus, but again its a tag-along mission and he seems to have more clout by then. The Mechanicum's lack of focus sort of necessitates an off-screen ascension, another issue with the series at large rather than with the character herself. 

 

I suppose a short story for each would help alleviate these issues, which is hardly beyond French's power to produce (and produce well.) I tend to frame them as "interesting steps in the right direction," for myself at least. They would be less acceptable in a series better planned and handled leading up to their introduction, but in the series we got I see French making the best of what we have rather than unduly prioritizing his own OCs. 

 

But this all may just be my bias against universes with disproportionately small casts. I'll usually laud the introduction of a new character (who has a personality and lasts more than a single work) regardless of quality. It's for the same reason I like most of French's additions to the cast.

Edited May 20, 2020 by Roomsky

[DarkChaplain]

Re: Sota-Nul, I have less of an issue with her/it existing in Ironclad as with her excessive prominence as of the Siege. She seems to have other Dark Mechanicum dudes and dudettes and dudeits worshipping her as a paragon of their order and what not, while we haven't seen Kelbor-Hal, Chrom and co since... since when, really? Has he even done anything worth seeing in the series since Mechanicum? Instead of seeing why he's still the de-facto leader of the Dark Mechanicum, we are told that he's trying to take credit for Sota-Nul's achievements.

As for Regulus, I found his absence really damned strange... and then he gets offed in a novella far away from anything relevant, that solely exists to wrap up a plotline for the Salamanders' 10 Millennia Hide-and-Seek Challenge. Underused doesn't quite describe my assessment of Regulus.

 

So in principle I'd say that I dislike that not one but two of French's creations, spawning from the same (in my opinion quite terrible, more so for it being the conclusion of an arc that started with one of the best novellas in the series) short novel, and BOTH ended up being preeminent by the time of the Siege, barely 3 years later in-universe, while most of the other dudes outranking them, with a history, end up sidelined, forgotten or simply remembered as sacrificial lambs.

 

.....and by Slaves to Darkness, and then the Siege, you have Zardu Layak basically being Erebus 2.0 in Horus' court, taking leadership over the Word Bearers siding with Horus over Lorgar, being badass enough to make it rain blood on Terra, knowing Abaddon's future, and exploding into a warp rift on Terra to manifest the first true daemons during the Siege, while also saving Abaddon's life for the xth time. Man, I hated him. That's three characters introduced to the series by French, come to think of it.

 

I do agree though that these issues could at least be fixable with a good couple of short stories, but I don't see those happening, at least not anytime soon. Maybe we'll see Argonis in a Horus Primarchs novel, although that'd depend on who gets to write it, and if it's French, I'm wary of him giving the bloke a bigger role in the narrative than the Mournival.

 

As for the sidelined characters, including Kelbor-Hal, they really screwed that one up by not actually addressing Mars for the better part of a decade. We've had short glimpses since Mechanicum, but the longest of those was Cybernetica... which I despise both for its plot, style and theme. That was such a bloody let down. At this point, I'm probably as frustrated by Black Library's refusal to acknowledge Mars in any real sense as those now-AdMech characters in exile are.

[Enosh]

let's not try to overthink why a female character in cast full of male ones is getting more focus over yet another male one, most writers try to have an about equal cast of characters gender wise (or at least not completely male dominated) and marines being all men means a lot of the non marines are going to be women

Edited May 20, 2020 by Enosh

[SkimaskMohawk]

We're straight up told argonis failed and that him being emissary is really a punishment. The guy seems to be a capable warrior/fighter pilot, but that's it. And even then, it's shown that he's arrogant and he might not be as good at things as he thinks (like when Argonis tells Volk that he was never able to match him in aerial combat, but you see in Slaves that Volk let him go. Or how despite being a chieftain in the first company and an emissary, hes a complete pawn in the Assassin's hands). The guy ain't a badass or totally awesome, he's just written in a likeable way and has depth.

 

I feel like Dark Chaplain is projecting dislike for other authors choices back to the introductory source. Zardu was fine in Slaves and Solar War. I personally didn't like him in LatD or FW, but I'm not going to say Slaves was less enjoyable for introducing him; might as well dump on Horus Rising for having Abbadon if we're following that logic. Same thing goes for sota nul stuff in LatD; it was dumb, but not John French writing his character.

 

It just seems to be that French makes good, interesting characters that people remember. And then other authors try and capitalize on that success only to mishandle them completely.

[byrd9999]

 

Damnation of Pythos - David Annandale

 

I admit I wasn't looking forward to this one because of the generally negative feeling towards it, but it turned out to be much better than I was expecting.

 

Firstly, Annandale has a very readable prose style and it is clear what is happening, which isn't something that can always be said of BL fiction. Secondly, this was the best depiction of the Iron Hands I have read so far. Annandale gave us two Iron Hands characters, Atticus and Galba, poles apart in terms of their machine-augmetics and their priorities, but both dealing with the fall-out of Isstvan V, the death of their primarch, the start of the heresy and what it now means to be an Iron Hand. He got inside their heads well and showed just how conflicted they could be, with realistic behaviours and rationales.

 

Of course they wouldn't be the Iron Hands if they didn't rush bone-headedly into a situation only to make things worse, but how they came to these decisions was very well played out in the book.

 

The use of human serfs also was well done, showing how they coped with the horror of Pythos and the inability of even the Iron Hands or praise of the Emperor to save them. It's nice to see the good guys lose so completely in the Heresy, and the flipside to the burgeoning cult of the Emperor showing that in the end He was powerless to protect anyone.

 

With a couple of tweaks, this would have made a great entry into the Horror series, something at which Annandale excels. The ending where Kanshell the serf, who had given himself over to worship of the Emperor, was horrific, being taken alive by the daemons to witness the Chaotic-resurrection of the Veritas Ferrum. The book left it at this, but I imagined that Kanshell would be incorporated, still-living, into the ship somehow, to bear witness to an eternity of horror.

 

The downsides for me were that the final 75-100 or so pages devolved into tedious bolter-porn, and so the great reveal of the daemon Madail was downplayed and overshadowed by Stuff Happening that it all turned into a blur.

 

7/10

 

I am just catching up with the Heresy series and have only just got to this one - have got some reading to do that's for sure!

 

Think you sum up the book pretty well. Agree this is probably the most serviceable attempt at writing Iron Hands I have come across - even amongst the rest of the Marine archetypes they are pretty dull so I think he does a good job to at least make it interesting. And find different ways of writing 'stony, immovable visage'! Adding a couple of marines from other Legions as well as the human characters was again I thought a good move, and helped to add a bit of colour. 

 

It was definitely good as a 'horror', and again agree about the ending section which you know is coming but is probably the weakest point of the book. I would preferred for him to have gone off-piste here and done something radical with the marines, but I guess there is probably something contractual within BL about having a certain number of characters grimly clutching kicking bolters and mass-reactive shells bursting enemies apart. 

 

Finally.. (highlight text for Spoilers..)

 

I have to say that the ending was so ridiculously, OTT grimdark that I actually found it amusing. I'm sure not the desired intent. 

 

Is there some tag here to a following story, audiobook or something like that that takes it further? 

 

 

@ Pacific81, I don't think Pythos/Pandorax has any more screen time in the Heresy, but the story is continued in 40k (or, rather the 30k was written as a prequel to the 40k stuff):

 

https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Pandorax_Campaign

Edited May 21, 2020 by byrd9999

[SkimaskMohawk]

Ruinstorm follows some of the plot elements as well.

[Noserenda]

So ive just started Honourbound on Audible and... Its not very good? It got pretty rave reviews on here and ive liked the Authors shorts ive read previously but its just not gripping me. It may be the readers performance but its just so flat and edgelordy?  

I guess im just wondering if its a shaky start and it gets better or a bad audio book version.

[Roomsky]

So ive just started Honourbound on Audible and... Its not very good? It got pretty rave reviews on here and ive liked the Authors shorts ive read previously but its just not gripping me. It may be the readers performance but its just so flat and edgelordy?  

 

I guess im just wondering if its a shaky start and it gets better or a bad audio book version.

 

I believe Knockagh commented on disliking the audiobook as well, it may be due to the narrator.

 

I read it in paperback and thought it was brilliant.

[cheywood]

 

 

So ive just started Honourbound on Audible and... Its not very good? It got pretty rave reviews on here and ive liked the Authors shorts ive read previously but its just not gripping me. It may be the readers performance but its just so flat and edgelordy?

 

I guess im just wondering if its a shaky start and it gets better or a bad audio book version.

I believe Knockagh commented on disliking the audiobook as well, it may be due to the narrator.

 

I read it in paperback and thought it was brilliant.

Same, besides being a filthy ebook reader. I read and liked the shorts well enough, but the novel was fantastic from page one onward.

[Ingo Pech]

Regarding the "The Damnation of Pythos"-story arc:

 

1) False Gods (introduction of Tsi Rekh)

2) Veritas Ferrum (introduction of Atticus), short story in "Shattered Legions)

3a) Damnation of Pythos (continuation of the story arc of Atticus and Tsi Rekh and introduction of Khalybus, Madail and the Damnation Cache)

3b) The Noose (continuation of the Khalybus-arc), short story in "Shattered Legions)

4) Ruinstorm (continuation of the Khalybus- and Madail-arc)

5) Pandorax (back to Pythos and the Damnation Cache)

[DarkChaplain]

Regarding the "The Damnation of Pythos"-story arc:

 

1) False Gods (introduction of Tsi Rekh)

2) Veritas Ferrum (introduction of Atticus), short story in "Shattered Legions)

3a) Damnation of Pythos (continuation of the story arc of Atticus and Tsi Rekh and introduction of Khalybus, Madail and the Damnation Cache)

3b) The Noose (continuation of the Khalybus-arc), short story in "Shattered Legions)

4) Ruinstorm (continuation of the Khalybus- and Madail-arc)

5) Pandorax (back to Pythos and the Damnation Cache)

 

Small correction and addition: Veritas Ferrum was in Legacies of Betrayal, rather than Shattered Legions. And in War Without End, there's another prequel to Pythos in Sermon of Exodus